Friday, 3 February 2006

Running School Turns OneSince turning one, this blog has undergone a few modifications because after all, in the world of blogging, form is more important than function..

Job Complete

My blog review is done.

Navigation Guide.

At the end of each post is a line like.

# posted by [contributor] time-stamp comment-field envelope-icon

1. The “#” at the start of the line is the permanent link (“permalink”) field.

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Permalinks are unique, permanent links that identify each post in a weblog. They enable you to easily create a link to the post from anywhere else, such as another blog, web page, or email for example.

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To create a link to the post, you just right-click on the # and (in Internet Explorer) choose the "Copy Shortcut" option. That copies that entry's URL to your clipboard, and you can paste it into the document where you want to use it..

If you don’t want to muck around with links (although they are very easy to use once you are used to them) you could use the email option. This is accessed via the envelope icon at the end of the "posted by" line. Clicking on it creates an email message containing the post’s (current) contents, rather than a link to the post itself.

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However I recommend you use links! Why? Because that gives me more traffic into the blog. Which is a good thing all round. So please try it..2. I have changed comment handling. Comments now appear in-line for viewing instead of on a separate page. I think that's much better, don't you? It is only when you decide to add a comment do you go to a separate page.

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3. You may have noticed I have changed the appearance of the “archive posts” list in the side-bar. Have you also noticed what happens to the previous post list when you view a previous post? It automatically changes so that it lists the posts immediately prior to the one you are viewing.

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And I have added a link “back to main page” at the top of the side-bar, which appears only when you are viewing a month of archived posts or an individual previous post. Useful too for when someone comes in to the post from the outside via its permalink; they can then navigate to the whole blog..

Blog Help

I wanted to have a "blog help" feature, maybe some pop-up text, but decided simply to link to this post from the side-bar. So I will do that next. And maybe, make some more small refinements as time goes on. But for now, it's done.

So there we have it. Welcome to my second year of blogging. The best is yet to come!

2 comments:

I am going to republish "just the help" part of this as a post right at the start of the blog (January 2005) and link to that instead of this. That way I can maintain it better and it will make more sense if/when people link to it.